Son of Lightning, Child of Moon
by Lutris A
Summary: The Last Dragonborn is locked in eternal combat with the World-Eater in Sovngarde. There are whispers of evil spreading in High Rock. The Aldmeri Dominion marches on Cyrodiil, and without a hero to guide them, Skyrim's Civil War rages on. The future of Tamriel itself seems dire, when an immense lightning storm brings with it a new hero to Nirn: Harry Potter, The Master of Death.
1. Masters of Death

_**Full Summary**_: _The Last Dragonborn is trapped, locked in eternal combat against Alduin the World-Eater in the realm of Sovngarde. The armies of the Aldmeri Dominion now march on Cyrodiil, and without a hero to guide them, the sons of Skyrim continue to shed the blood of their brothers. There are rumors of a dark shadow rising in the West, whispers of evil spreading in High Rock. The future of Tamriel itself seems dire, when an immense storm calls down a lightning bolt of epic proportions, and with it, a hero from another world: The Master of Death._

_**Preface**_:_ This is a Harry Potter/Elder Scrolls crossover, taking place during and after the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, featuring Harry as the Master of Death. It starts off with an alternate ending to DH, and kicks off from there._

_Special thanks to Aekiel, Fiat, and MattSilver, for being awesome bros and sounding boards for both lore and story. Thanks to Deviatesfish, who helped to keep me on the job. A shout out goes to Lamora, author of such epics as A Game of Champions, and The Legend Yet Grew, which was the primary inspiration for my fic. Finally, thanks to everybody on DLP and SpaceBattles who read and reviewed._

_This fic is dedicated to the absolutely incredible C, who keeps me inspired and working hard throughout everything._

* * *

**Chapter 01**

* * *

All I could see was light, and I couldn't stop laughing.

It was blindingly bright, and brilliantly white. It was pain, and purity, and mindless energy, all at once. I could feel intense heat against my skin, a scorching flame one moment and a gentle warmth the next, and for all the moments in between, as an infinite number of needle-like blades stabbing into every fiber of my being.

The light was everything, the only thing that I could perceive. I knew nothing but joy, and felt only the light.

Then, the universe righted itself, and I could see.

Stars shone across a vast nothingness, covering my entire field of vision. They were as tiny pinpricks of light on an ink-black canvas, some smaller than others, some larger. I could feel myself being pulled along by an unseen force, moving quickly and gliding across an infinite expanse of space. Distant stars glittered, and I saw vast galaxies swirling just out of my reach.

My reach?

I blinked, the transition from feeling everything at once to feeling nothing at all jarring my mind awake. I had arms. I swiveled my head, turning my eyes downwards. I had legs.

I remembered then – I was human.

I stretched my arms out wide, and felt a liquid sort of pressure washing over them. It was like diving through water, I somehow knew, and I laughed into the nothingness.

I felt power all around me, and furious white fire flooded out of the darkness to carry me to my destination. I knew now, that I was travelling, and the white light was my vehicle. It crackled, and burned, and was impossible to control.

I was riding pure energy - an infinitely massive, endlessly powerful lightning bolt, and I'd only just noticed.

What wasn't there to laugh about?

* * *

_Harry turned slowly on the spot, and his surroundings seemed_

_to invent themselves before his eyes. A wide-open space, bright_

_and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear_

_domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. He was the only person_

_there, except for—_

(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 35, "King's Cross")

* * *

"Hello, Harry."

It was Dumbledore, a grave expression adorning his face, even though he looked glad to see me. He looked differently to what I remembered, wearing flowing robes of the purest white, and missing his customary half-moon glasses.

There was also the fact that I'd seen him fall from the top of the Astronomy Tower nearly a year ago, and attended his funeral soon after.

"Professor? Is that really you?"_ You're supposed to be dead_, the distrustful part of my brain whispered.

"It is I, Harry. And I am most certainly dead." Dumbledore said, his voice briefly taking on some measure of amusement as he did. His good humor lasted only a moment though, and his blue eyes seemed to be made of ice and steel as he turned his gaze to directly meet mine.

"We have much to speak about, dear boy. Come. Walk with me."

Dumbledore began walking away into the grand hall we were in, and a white glow began suffusing the entire structure around us. His strides were brisk and wide, and he walked too quickly for a man of his age. I hastened to follow, and soon matched his steps and stood side-by-side with him. Several moments passed, before I decided to speak up.

"Where are we, Professor?" I asked, casting my eyes around the massive stone structure we walked in.

"Where do you think we are, Harry? What do you see?" Dumbledore answered a question with two questions, which was infuriatingly like him, and served to alleviate some of my caution.

"We're in the Great Hall, I think," I started, and looked around the hall again before continuing, "There's no tables though, and everything's white."

"I would have thought you would choose a simpler metaphor, Harry. A train station, perhaps." Dumbledore said, looking somewhat amused. "We are in a place between life and death – the Hall is a bridge, or taking into account what you see around you, a waiting room if you will, to the afterlife."

I nodded, accepting his answer for the time being, and moved onto more pressing matters.

"I saw you die, sir, and your portrait told us – me and Ron and Hermione – to hunt down the Horcruxes. We did. We got the Locket, and the Cup, and the Diadem, and we also got…" I reached up to touch my scar reflexively, tracing the contours of the lightning bolt on my forehead as I usually did.

"Voldemort took over the Ministry, and he came to Hogwarts. Neville killed Nagini, I think, and I went out to the Forbidden Forest to meet him. And…" I trailed off, realizing that if this whole thing wasn't a hallucination, then I was probably dead. Dumbledore looked at me, curiosity evident in his eyes.

"I didn't defend myself. I meant to let him kill me." For some reason, Dumbledore smiled at that.

"You are a brave man, Harry. Not many could accept death as you did, to sacrifice yourself so wholly for the sake of others. For that, I am extremely proud of you." His gaze was filled with pride for an instant, but then the worried expression came back, his eyes darkened. "In this instance however, it appears that Fate was not on our side."

He directed us to a bench that had somehow appeared without me noticing, glowing white like the rest of the Hall we were in. He sat down with a grunt, fidgeted around for a few moments to make himself comfortable, and gestured for me to take a seat next to him.

"You see Harry, you are not entirely dead. Not quite, anyway. Your love for your friends, your self-sacrifice… those should have made all the difference." He started, and then put his hand on mine in what seemed to be a comforting gesture. "It is here that I must make a sincere apology to you, for I fear that I have made a gross miscalculation."

"Voldemort," I realized. "Professor, if I was his last Horcrux, and I'm not dead from his Killing Curse, then what happened to the last piece of his soul?"

"It should have died, Harry. It should have died. By all rights, it should have perished. It appears however, that it survived. And therein lays our problem." As Dumbledore spoke, the chamber around us seemed to darken. The white light surrounding us ebbed and flowed, as if it was fighting off some unseen force. He glanced about, and furrowed his brows.

"We must make haste; it appears that he is more powerful than I had previously anticipated. We do not have the luxury of security now, but no matter – we cannot let these words go unsaid. I'm sure you have many questions Harry, but I fear that I must abbreviate my explanations. If circumstances had been more fortunate, I would have elaborated in greater detail…" Dumbledore sighed resignedly. I nodded, and motioned for him to go on.

"As you doubtlessly understand, Lord Voldemort took your blood, and with that act took within himself magic that he could never comprehend – your mother's protection, Harry. He did so in an attempt to strengthen himself, but in taking your blood, he linked his mortality to yours. You eliminated his many Horcruxes one by one until only he remained, but there existed one more piece of his soul." Dumbledore continued.

"Me." I replied pointedly.

"Yes, Harry. You, or rather your scar. I will not bore you with speculation as to how the final piece of his soul latched onto you. Suffice it to say, this piece of his soul remained inside of you your entire life. It was this that allowed you to speak Parseltongue, and allowed you to occasionally see into Voldemort's mind – and he into yours." Dumbledore's expression was wary now, and I could feel the room becoming even darker than before.

"This was my error in judgment. It was a grievous error, one that may have cost us everything. I had not taken into account that as much as this piece of Voldemort's soul belonged to him, it was at the same time a crucial part of you. I underestimated how deeply the Dark Lord's soul had entrenched itself in your being. Your choices defined you – your valor versus his vile greed - I had hoped that these choices would be enough."

"You accepted death with open arms, Harry. You mastered all three Deathly Hallows – the Stone, the Cloak, and the Wand, and having welcomed death as a friend, you became a true Master of Death. But impossibly and quite paradoxically…" Dumbledore sighed, "He, or more accurately it, has become, shall we say, a Master of Death by proxy."

I didn't know what to say. The Hallows were instrumental in keeping my friends and I alive, and once all was said and done, they were the only things that had allowed me to come as far as I had. The Invisibility Cloak hid us from harm, so that we might strike against our foes unseen. The Resurrection Stone gave me the strength to face my fear – and my death. That left only the Elder Wand, which I was sure I didn't have on me. Voldemort – the 'real' one – used it to kill me in the Forbidden Forest, after all.

"That doesn't make sense, sir. I didn't have the Wand – Voldemort did. And he used it kill me." I pointed out, not understanding. If he used it to kill me, or send me into this limbo state, or whatever this white plane was, then surely Voldemort was the master of the Elder Wand.

"The short of it, is that Lord Voldemort was never the true master of the Elder Wand. It so happens that the Deathstick – the Elder Wand, as you called it – only truly obeys the wizard that has earned it by right of conquest. I was its owner once, but I was disarmed by Draco Malfoy, if you recall. That made the Wand his, though I doubt he knew it. I instructed Severus to strike me down, transferring ownership of the Wand to him in the eyes of all those present – this deception was necessary, I am afraid." Dumbledore spoke in hushed tones, and then fell silent. Clearly he wanted me to piece things together on my own, so he didn't have to speak aloud.

Going by what Dumbledore said, when Voldemort killed Snape, he believed that the Elder Wand then became his. In reality, Malfoy was the true Master of the Elder Wand, and I'd disarmed him, in effect defeating him. That made me the current Master.

"So I really am the Master of Death." I whispered, more for my own benefit than Dumbledore's, though that didn't stop him from nodding along.

"Now, you understand." It was a statement, rather than a question, that came from Dumbledore's mouth. "He could not strike you down, not truly – the Wand wasn't his to begin with, and it could not be used to kill its own Master any more than a pig can sprout wings and fly on its own. It simply went against the nature of the Wand to do so."

"But the sliver of Voldemort's soul that resided in you also has a measure of Mastery over the Wand. It is a part of you, after all. And rest assured, Harry, it is coming. It is coming to claim that Mastery for itself, to fight off the Killing Curse that is threatening to kill the both of you, and emerge as the only Master of Death in the wake of your ruin. That is what is at stake here." He said, gravely.

"Here, in this twilit space between the living world and the next, the Wand is as much a part of you as it is a physical object in the waking realm. It is an integral part of your soul now. The Wand is a symbol. It represents your status as the Master of Death, and whomsoever holds it, in this metaphysical plane… he is the true Master." He paused to take a breath, cautiously watching our surroundings as he did.

"The shard that resided in you is Voldemort at the height of his power, Harry. It was made when he killed your mother in cold blood, and then turned his wand against you – the Voldemort that you know today is but a shadow of his former self, in many ways; madness took root at his rebirth. You must not let him have the Wand, Harry. _You must not_." It was uncharacteristic of Dumbledore to be so emotional, to let desperation color his words. I nodded, to show my understanding.

The whiteness of the room dimmed again, flashing and pulsating as if to punctuate his words. From Dumbledore's expression, I took the flashing to mean that the piece of Voldemort's soul in my scar was gaining ground and breaking past any protections that stood between this place and wherever it was. I blinked, and in the moment I'd had my eyes closed, Dumbledore had drawn his own wand from some place within his white robes.

"I shall aid you in its defense. Call the Wand to you, Harry. Leaving it hidden is of no use here – the Horcrux would not hesitate to strike you down unarmed, should you remain without it. It should come to you if you call it, Harry. You are its true Master, for as long as you hold it. Now, make haste – he comes!"

The vast chamber shook violently. Glowing white stone cracked and crumbled, sending sparkling white motes of dust flying into the air. Crystalline glass, from windows so up high that I could only see them if I craned my neck, shattered and began to fall like jagged blades. Walls fell, and the roof seemed to disappear into black nothingness, leaving only half the walls and most of the floor intact. It seemed as if we were in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, only it was split in twain along the middle, and pieces were falling off into an absolute void.

I warily let my right hand wander to my jeans pocket, where despite not having any reason to, I knew the Elder Wand would be. My fingers touched a knobby, wooden handle, and I let myself smile. _It really came._

I whipped it out of my pocket, and felt a rush of power flow through me. I shivered, goosebumps rising all over my skin. I nodded, and Dumbledore, upon confirming that I was able to call the Wand, grimly turned to face the void that encroached upon our position. We only had to wait for a moment before a cold, high laughter began to ring out into the crumbling Hall.

I shuddered involuntarily. I knew that laughter, though it was different from the way that the Voldemort I knew laughed. His was a cold laugh like this one, but colored in a psychotic, unhinged cruelty. I was used to it, despite it being a terrifying sound. No, I shuddered because on some level, I remembered this laughter from when the Dark Lord had come to kill me as a baby. This was the laugh of the ruthlessly efficient, unimaginably cruel man that had murdered my mother and father. More than anything, I felt righteous anger burning inside of me at that thought.

"Harry Potter," The Horcrux spoke slowly, his voice silky and dangerous. White clouds blew away into nothingness with a howl of wind, and as the dust settled, he slowly came into view. "I've come for what's mine."

The Horcrux grinned toothily, and spread its arms wide. He didn't look like the Voldemort that I knew from experience, though he had the same impossibly pale skin and red, reptilian eyes. He was still _Tom Riddle_, not the supernatural monster he'd become. That much was evident, though he looked so gaunt that he was probably more bone than human. He had fine features that would have been considered handsome, if he didn't look so starved and maddened, and raven black hair flowed down to his ankles as if it had been left untended for years – which I noted, made some sort of sense.

"It's not yours," I told him, and readied the Elder Wand, "It'll never be."

"So be it!" The Horcrux snarled, and made a sharp, jabbing motion with his hands. Blades of cold, frigid winds seemed to shimmer in the air around him, before he swung his arms wildly, and the blades shot out at Dumbledore and I – but dying evidently hadn't slowed the professor down at all, and with a deft twirl of his wand, he summoned a wall of fire to shield us from the malevolent magic. Dumbledore turned to me, and mouthed the words_ he must not have it_, before turning his attention back to the spell.

I knew I couldn't compete against magic of this magnitude, even though I could probably manage more than I thought I could because of the elder Wand. I dropped to a crouch, and sped off at an odd angle to Dumbledore's shield to get a better vantage point against the Horcrux.

Dumbledore wordlessly stabbed his wand forward, sending the flames rocketing towards the Horcrux. The Horcrux sneered in response, and I saw his blood red eyes glint with a look I couldn't identify, somewhere between disgust and malice. With a deft motion, he froze the inferno in its tracks – literally. Fire seemed to crawl to a standstill at first, and began to freeze over as if it was jagged, orange ice. The Horcrux snapped his fingers, and the flame-cicle cracked and shattered into a thousand pieces.

"You would intercede on behalf of the boy even after your death, Dumbledore? You cling to life, though you no longer have any claim on the mortal coil – you _hypocrite_." He venomously spat, pointing an accusatory finger at Dumbledore, crimson spell-light forming at its tip.

"I do what I must, Tom. Now,_ begone_!" Dumbledore roared, and forced the Horcrux on the defensive, a torrent of white lightning erupting from his wand and branching into countless tendrils of ferocious power. The Horcrux dodged and weaved, and made a slicing motion with his hand – and a wave of furious red light came upon us like a tidal wave.

I ducked down to avoid the spell; Dumbledore brushed it aside with barely a thought.

The Horcrux snarled again, and disappeared from view. Dumbledore's lightning zapped through the space he'd occupied moments before, and a thunderous explosion nearly deafened me. I braced myself, letting the shockwave wash over me. This duel was beyond me; I couldn't stand against the sheer skill the two masters of magic displayed just now, and so I stayed crouching, a small distance behind Dumbledore so that he stood between me and the Horcrux. The Horcrux itself had seemingly Apparated though, and reappeared some distance away.

"Let the boy fight his own battles, Dumbledore. Let him be a _Gryffindor_ to the last!" He mocked disdainfully, his tongue curling over the name of my House. "He disgraces the name, Dumbledore. He conceded victory to my counterpart – the boy allowed himself to be killed, like a lamb to be slaughtered! He is a _coward_, not a savior!"

"There is true power in love and self-sacrifice, Tom. It is power that you could never understand," Dumbledore growled, then continued in a gentler tone, "Do not allow his words to hold sway over you, Harry. You have already overcome him with precisely those things, and he hopes to take that advantage away from you."

Dumbledore's advice made sense, but the Horcrux's commentary still shook me. Had I given up? Had I allowed the real Voldemort to kill me so I could take the easy way out? It was true that it was the only way to safely secure the lives of everyone at Hogwarts, I knew, but a small part of me found itself agreeing with the Horcrux.

The larger part of me however - the primordial,_ Gryffindor_part of me, roared its defiance at that thought. I did not give my life in vain, nor for Voldemort's mere shadow to affect me with a few choice words.

"I won't let him call me a coward, Professor." I whispered, and hearing no immediate response, took a deep breath. I exhaled, and air left my lungs in a great heave.

"This is my fight, not yours."

Dumbledore appeared to deflate when he heard me, and momentarily closed his eyes. He appeared resigned, as if I was missing some great secret that I should have understood intrinsically, but then readied his wand again. "Very well. We all do what we must."

"_Stupefy_!" I shot off the first offensive spell that came to mind, and crimson light sped off towards Voldemort's soul shard. He jumped to avoid my spell, and responded by effortlessly throwing a storm of icicles the size of broadswords at me.

I couldn't survive that.

"_Protego_!" I shouted, putting every ounce of my being into maintaining my shield. Blades of ice smashed against it, making it flicker with each consecutive hit – as much raw power as the Elder Wand provided for me, and as much leeway it gave to me when it came to spellcasting, there was only so much I could do against an attack of this magnitude.

A jet of flame appeared in front of me though, forming into another fiery wall, and the icicles turned to harmless water as they passed through the barrier and splashed against my shield. Dumbledore stepped in front of me now, standing protectively in front of me.

"I am still your friend, Harry, and you are still in need of my aid. Pride does not avail you here. He is strong, terribly so, but he is still only a Horcrux. He has only as much strength as you allow, Harry – I am sure of this now. You are yet the true Master." He said, and slung another massive bolt of lightning towards the Horcrux, cold determination filling his visage. The Horcrux only laughed in response. He was chuckling lightly at first, with both his hands splayed out in front of him to keep Dumbledore's lightning at bay. Soon, he was laughing uproariously, his amusement plain to see.

"You have no real power here, Albus. I see now; it is only by the will of the _Aether_that you remain in this realm. This is the waking dream of the Master of Death…" The Horcrux continued to chuckle, "And I am He!"

Dumbledore responded by flicking his alabaster wand three times in rapid succession, and chunks of glowing white debris rose up and seemed to morph into three enormous statues, armed to the teeth and dressed as ancient Roman legionnaires. The legionnaires opened their mouths in soundless war cries, and fell upon the Horcrux with their weapons drawn.

The Horcrux cursed, and still holding Dumbledore's magic at bay, summoned a massive, nine-headed serpent of his own that bled black ichor onto the snow-white floors of the Hall, setting it to occupy the legionnaires.  
_  
He's distracted_, I realized. _I won't get another chance like this._

"_Bombarda_!" I seized the moment, and let loose a barrage of Blasting Curses at the Horcrux while he was occupied. My magic wasn't as refined or as experienced as Dumbledore's, or even Voldemort's – but with the Elder Wand fueling my spells, they were more powerful than they could easily defend against.

The Horcrux hissed, diverting his attention to defend against my spells as well as Dumbledore's. He couldn't afford to let the lightning through his defense, and compromised by focusing less effort on deflecting my attack. Two of my curses were deflected by his shield and went skittering off at odd angles, but a single Blasting Curse smashed into his side. He went sprawling, rolling once, twice, three times, before careening off the edge of the Hall and into the void.

Dumbledore's legionnaires fought against Horcrux's hydra in the backdrop, crashing and destroying everything in sight like titans, before the hydra suddenly shrieked, and fell apart in a splash of sickening, black oil.

"He is not dead yet." Dumbledore said, seemingly relieved. "But we are safe for the time being. You must-" That was as far as he got, before a blade as dark as the night erupted from his chest, his crimson life's blood staining his white robes.

"I told you, Dumbledore. You have no power here, and the boy yet fears me," The Horcrux gestured towards me, and let Dumbledore crumple to the ground. "So I am still the Master."

I tried not to let the sight of Dumbledore's wheezing, bleeding body bother me. I failed. Dumbledore's blood – _how does a dead spirit have blood?_– had splattered onto my face. He'd been facing me when he was stabbed, and the tip of the blade came out right in front of my eyes. Surprisingly, it wasn't shock or disbelief or fear that first came upon me.

It was anger.

"Your protector is gone, Harry Potter," The Horcrux said, poison dripping from every word, "You are now utterly without allies. Give me the Wand – it is mine by right. Give me the Wand, and I shall spare your friends' lives."

I ignored him. I've always had a temper to go along with my saving-people-thing. My outbursts during my fifth year at Hogwarts were more a lapse in control than an uncharacteristic bout of aggression. I'd since gotten better at it, and was just good at controlling it, most of the time. Seeing Dumbledore be murdered right in front of me for the second time was two times too many.

_He has only as much strength as you allow. _I remembered what Dumbledore said, as I watched the Horcrux run him through and discard him without sparing a thought. It wasn't enough that I didn't want to turn the Elder Wand over. It didn't matter that the Horcrux was much more powerful than I was, or that Dumbledore's spirit fell to treachery.

"Give me the Wand, Harry." The Horcrux repeated itself, stepping over Dumbledore, "Your resistance is endearing, but futile. Relinquish your claim to its Mastery, and save your friends."

_Think. Think, Harry. _It was difficult not to shake in quiet anger at his blatant lack of common decency, and that made it hard to focus. Still, I wracked my brain. What had Dumbledore said? The Horcrux was only as powerful as I allowed him to be, apparently, but that was clearly not the case. This was _my_mind, or at least I thought it was, and if I say something goes, something should have went. The Horcrux still had power, and had incapacitated the Headmaster. I feared him, and rightly so.

"Give me the Wand, Harry." The Horcrux repeated itself, "I have already defeated Dumbledore, your superior. You have no hope of victory against me – give me the Wand now, and I shall graciously spare the lives of your friends when I return to the Wizarding World."

I bristled at his arrogant tone, but kept my rising temper restrained. A metaphorical light bulb lit up in my head. Why was he wasting his time trying to convince me to give the Elder Wand to him in the first place? He had no compunctions about taking Dumbledore out of the game. Why not overpower me and simply win the Wand from me? That was how the very nature of the fickle Wand worked - it obeyed the wizard who won it through right of conquest.

Then I remembered what the Horcrux said to Dumbledore, in the moments after he had stabbed him. _I still feared him, and so he was still the Master. _We were both Masters of Death. That must have meant that we both already had claims on the Elder Wand, and in order for him to defeat me and truly claim the Wand for himself, my defeat had to be _complete_. Simply taking the Wand wasn't enough. He had to _vanquish_me, as stated by the Prophecy that ruled my entire life up to this point.

Not for the first time, I cursed Sybil Trelawney for making that Prophecy all those years ago in the Hog's Head.

Still, even if the Horcrux had killed Dumbledore or I lost to him in combat, as long as I didn't accept my defeat, I would always have a handle on the Elder Wand. If Dumbledore was right, if _I_was right, then if I allowed myself to feel no fear, I had nothing to fear from him. At least here, wherever the Hall truly was. I felt determination flow through me, and steeled myself.

"I said it once, Voldemort. I'll say it again: it'll never be yours."

"A pity." The Horcrux said, and kicked Dumbledore's body disdainfully. "I think I shall kill the Mudblood first. Or that lover of yours – I've always hated leaving things half-finished."

He was trying to get a rise out of me, to cow me into submission. I felt anger rising up inside of me, bubbling up like molten lead. It could have made me fear for my friends, to worry if my sacrifice would only end up dooming them. Instead, I let my anger control me. The Horcrux had power over me because a large part of me still feared him.

Fear's got nothing on fury.

I yelled something that was halfway between an enraged roar and a controlled curse, and stabbed the Elder Wand forward with such force that it felt like I dislocated my shoulder from the motion. A blue beam that was as thick as a bludger was round erupted from the end of my wand, and burst towards the Horcrux with such speed that he barely managed to block it.

The Horcrux did something with his hands, and blocks of rubble flew towards him, warping and sharpening into jagged, murderous spikes. A brief gesture later, the spikes all shot towards me, their trajectories twisting and curving to try and impale me at angles I couldn't predict – I didn't care. I ignored the giant spikes whizzing around in the air, and broke into a run directly at the Horcrux.

The Elder Wand seemed to drink my emotions, and reinforced my magic. I let the Wand guide me, and I knew then the power it truly held.

The faux-Voldemort needed only one hand to control the stone spikes though, and with his other hand, curled his fingers in a claw-like grip and swiped it through the air. I could feel the magic he summoned even focused entirely on the offense, and it was molten hot and filled with predatory malice.

I didn't even flinch when a serpent of fire appeared in front of the Horcrux, coiled and ready to strike, or when the spikes of glowing white stone came crashing down around me, stabbing into the floor meters deep, chips flying off like shrapnel. The only thought in my mind was getting closer, and so I closed the distance between me and the Horcrux. The fire hissed, and it struck, its jaws distended and fangs glowing with supernatural heat.

"_REDUCTO_!" I screamed, shoving the Elder Wand through the snake's mouth, my spell's red energy blasting through the intangible flames and clearing them away like a strong wind disperses thick clouds. Strangely, the fire wasn't hot, but rather pleasantly warm, but I let that thought slide by as I focused on destroying the last Horcrux of Lord Voldemort.

The look of surprise on the Horcrux's face was memorable. It was clear he didn't expect me to do that, or be able to pull something as stupid as forcing my way through the veritable storm of lethal spellfire he'd sent my way. It was to his credit as a master wizard though, that he'd already begun to Disapparate out of the line of fire. It was to my credit as the Master of Death on a murderous rage that he didn't escape unscathed.

My Reductor Curse smashed into the Horcrux's shoulder, taking with it a large section of his chest and sending his right arm flying off into the void. The remains of Horcrux's flame summons washed over me, and it felt as if they were seeping into my skin, his magic losing its efficacy against me.

The Horcrux reappeared somewhere off to my right with a faint pop, armless and in pain. He landed harshly on the marble floors of the Hall, and I felt a measure of satisfaction as he screamed in incoherent rage.

The very air around me seemed to quake as the Horcrux made his rage known, and the already crumbling Hall began to fall apart faster and faster, bits and pieces of stone flying every which way. His angry bellowing only continued for a scant few seconds more, but he soon fell silent. The Horcrux's eyes gleamed with a frigid ferocity, barely restrained emotion swimming under the surface, and his scraggly long hair billowed in an unseen gale.

"You_ dare_, Potter? I have seen your pitiful exploits against my counterpart. For nigh on seventeen long years, I have watched you grow, unable to act, locked in that accursed scar. You are weak - too weak. I am the future of the Wizarding World, of a world cleansed of the mundane!" He breathed dangerously, and the volume of his voice rose in a tremendous crescendo, "That power is mine, and it is mine _alone_!"

Being one-armed barely slowed the Horcrux down, and he immediately fired off a flurry of curses from his remaining hand, an animalistic snarl stretching his gaunt features grotesquely. I could barely keep up, twisting and turning desperately to dodge his spellfire.

A sickly yellow spell caught me in the leg and set it on fire, the curse knocking me down to the floor. I yelped as my cheek smacked onto stone, the impact jarring me for a moment. The Horcrux bared his teeth triumphantly, and I barely managed to get to my feet in time to see his next move.

"_AVADA KEDAVRA_!" The Horcrux threw the emerald-green light of the Killing Curse at me, and I hurriedly dodged to the side. I didn't even want to think the effect of one of those would be in my current state. According to Dumbledore, I was neither dead nor alive.

"_AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA!" T_he Horcrux thundered, his cries a mix of fury and frustration. I neatly stepped out of the way of the first two curses, and as the third Killing Curse came flying towards me, I stopped.

In a strange moment of clarity, I had an epiphany. All of Voldemort's other Horcruxes were destroyed – and I knew Ron and Hermione wouldn't let me down. I trusted my friends to finish the job I'd started, to finish the Dark Lord off for good. These thoughts ran through my mind in an instant, informed by my anger, or perhaps in spite of it. It would all be for naught if I didn't stop this piece of Voldemort's soul here and now. I couldn't cast Fiendfyre, and I didn't have the Sword of Gryffindor. I was the Master of Death, and the Horcrux needed to die.  
_  
So kill him. You know what to do._

I didn't like it. But it was _necessary_.

"_AVADA KEDAVRA!_" I responded in kind, my own Killing Curse rocketing towards the Horcrux.

Impossibly, but not unexpectedly, the fatal curses met each other in midair. Static erupted from the impact, the unnatural green light of the Killing Curse sending sparks and erratic jolts of green lightning between the Horcrux and me. Unlike with the Priori Incantatem effect, the Horcrux and I weren't locked in a battle of wills. The Elder Wand refused to budge though, and my hands refused to release their hold on it as energy continued to build to extraordinary heights.

The magic of our curses seemed to lock us in our positions, and I could only watch as the energies of the Killing Curses of the Masters of Death swirled in a chaotic vortex. The Horcrux seemed to be in much the same predicament, eyes furiously darting to and fro, presumably to find a way to escape or regroup. It was useless, though. Right now, we were evenly matched, him with his twisted, powerful magic, and me with the Elder Wand, but neither of us were able to move an inch.

The mass of magic between us roared in its intensity, and ghostly fire began streaming out of the glowing green ball. The white stones of the Hall shook and rumbled, and rubble began circling around the two of us, caught up in a rapidly accelerating twister of pure energy. The swirling magic seemed to even suck away my anger and heart for battle, leaving me with a strange sense of acceptance and anticipation, though for what I had no idea. The Horcrux seemed to be in a worse state, though the vortex seemed to have taken his rage as well.

"_What is this magic_!?" The Horcrux bellowed, though I could only just barely hear him, fear only now entering his voice.

"You tell me!" I hollered back, equally scared, but somehow still marveling at the phenomenon unfolding before me. This was magic beyond mine, and beyond Voldemort's understanding.

The sickening color of the magic seemed to disappear as the vortex mounted in intensity, and the previously Killing-Curse-green lightning and fire of the maelstrom became more and more a pure, white energy, and the entire Hall seemed to catch fire around us.

The Elder Wand burned white in my hands, and the energies of the vortex spun out and flew towards it like electricity to a lightning rod. Power, pure power, shot up my arms and through my body, setting every single one of my nerves on fire.

The agony passed into elation, and somewhere along the line, I began laughing.

The last words I heard were those of an old man, whispering into my ear.

"_Good luck, Harry._"

I _laughed_.

What wasn't there to laugh about?

* * *

_To be continued…_

* * *

_**Next Chapter...**_

_I awoke in a blizzard._

_My world was a flurry of snow and fire. Shadows danced all around me, flickering and dying. Everything was set aglow with the low light of dying embers, orange light and dark shadows dominating my vision. The light illuminated both the snow around me and the bleached, bare trees that surrounded me on all sides. Dead branches and dried underbrush caught fire and glowed, then turned to black soot that stained and dirtied the snow underneath._

_There was an unmistakable stench of burning flesh in the air, and I felt the cold stab into my body like a knife. I couldn't see – everything was blurry, but I could barely make out golden bodies charred black, and white flecks of snow blowing nearly sideways in the wind._

_The Elder Wand slipped from my fingers, and I could feel the digits beginning to freeze over in the blizzard blowing around me._

_Where on earth was I?_


	2. Windhelm

_**Previously, in Son of Lightning, Child of Moon...**_

_Harry wakes up in an in-between place between life, death, and the afterlife, after facing Lord Voldemort alone in the Forbidden Forest. There, he meets the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, who cautions him of the Dark Lord's final Horcrux, revealing that both Harry and the Horcrux have become Masters of Death. A battle breaks out over possession of the Elder Wand, whose owner will emerge as the true Master. But when Harry and the Horcrux's Killing Curses collide, lightning strikes, sending Harry hurtling through an abyssal void..._

**_Preface and Author's Notes:_**

_Thanks to everybody who reviewed my first chapter so far (all 9 of you, here on FFN). You guys rock._

_Thanks again to** MattSilver**,** Fiat**, and **Aekiel** (Dovaekiin! Dovaekiin! Nahlok zin los vahriin!), without whose hefty brains this fic would never have gotten off the ground at all. Special thanks to the guys and gals of** DLP**, who pointed out many flaws in my initial drafts (especially** Taure**, who deserves credit for educating the rest of us about the differences between large and small penises), as well as the denizens of the **SpaceBattles** forums, who have provided insights I would have gone without._

_This fic is for C. _

* * *

**Chapter 02**

* * *

It seemed like an eternity had passed, but I had no way of knowing. Time has a weird way of stretching and contracting when you have no way of telling it – but I supposed that was the point of telling the time. People told time how they expected it to behave, and it played along until we were alone and defenseless against its whims.

There was a blue planet below me. It was far, far away, but I could tell that it was coming closer and closer every second. There seemed to be a hurricane, or at least an enormous storm building on one of the continents, and I could see brief flashes of whitish purple light where lightning must have been falling.

The planet came yet closer, appearing larger in my eyes.

_No_, I realized. I was the one moving towards it, not the other way around. White electricity crackled around me, seemingly agreeing with my assessment.

I closed my eyes but for a moment. When I opened them again, I was in a different place.

The energy that had thus far carried me surrounded me and buoyed me, as if I was floating in it. My eyes burned, and liquid fire raced across my skin. My chest felt like hot coals were roasting inside, and for an instant, I was sure my stomach was being filled with molten slag. I tried to open my eyes, but found that my eyelids were sealed shut by an outside force, and they wouldn't budge, no matter how hard I tried to move them.

I felt a tingle run down through my body, and static ran down from my torso down to my toes. The jolt made my extremities jump, and I shivered.

The energy that crackled around my face and kept my eyes shut subsided, and I found that I could open my eyes. Despite the blurriness, having my vision returned made me realize that I was on my back, looking upwards into the night sky. Stars glittered overhead, and there were two moons, one white, the other red – _two moons_ – that shone eerily brightly, both of them full and heavy in the sky.

Without warning, there was a stab of pain at the base of my head, and I barely stopped it from snapping back as gravity kicked in. The muscles in my neck clenched before relaxing, and realized I could now turn my head.

I looked around me, and saw the storm that raged around me. Titanic grey clouds spun tumultuously with me at the center, as if I was at the eye of the storm. There was lightning flashing and crashing in every direction, just like that storm I saw in the before-place, that starry void with the planet down below. Several moments later, it hit me that I must now be on that planet – storms like this couldn't happen in space, from what little science I could remember from before Hogwarts.

My right hand waved into my field of vision, and it glowed dazzling white, the same pure, shining color of the energy that had carried me here. Electricity crackled, and struck the back of my hand – I winced, closing my eyes at the sudden sensation. When I looked at my hand again, the mark of the Deathly Hallows was there, glowing an eerie green.

The clouds around me welled up, twisting faster and faster, and the white energy seemed to supercharge itself, exerting an ever-increasing pressure on my eardrums. Involuntarily, I yelped in pain – it felt as though my head was tearing itself apart.

The pressure kept on building, and my heart sounded like a massive drum, booming in time with my heartbeat at an overwhelmingly loud volume. I was sure I was screaming in pain, but there was no way to tell; the drums were too loud. My head felt like it was being split in two pieces, and every beat of my heart sent a new pulse of pain crashing into my skull.

Abruptly, the drumbeat stopped, and I nearly wept from relief as the pain halted – only for a blinding light to fill my vision, and shoot straight through my body.

The Cruciatus was nothing – _this_ was true agony. I screamed, and my throat nearly tore from the effort.

Lightning crashed, and I fell.

* * *

I awoke to biting winds and cold flecks of snow melting on the tip of my nose.

The first sensation I registered was the sheer coldness I felt, though there seemed to be a small, dwindling source of heat nearby. I was curled up into a ball as if I was a fetus, my arms curled around my shoulders and my knees tucked up to my chest. Something was poking me in the cheek, and it took me several moments to realize that I held the Elder Wand in my right hand – I was shoving it into my face like an idiot.

I was also naked.

I started shivering and chattering my teeth wildly. The Elder Wand slipped from my fingers, and I could feel the digits beginning to freeze over in the blizzard blowing around me.

Shivering violently, I reached out to pick up my wand. My fingers moved sluggishly, feeling as if they weren't a part of my body at all, but with effort, dug the Deathstick out of a patch of dirtied snow.

With bleary eyes, I looked around my surroundings.

My world was a flurry of snow and fire. Shadows danced all around me, flickering and dying. Everything was set aglow with the low light of dying embers, orange light and dark shadows dominating my vision. The light illuminated both the snow around me and the scorched, bare trees that surrounded me on all sides. Dead branches and dried underbrush caught fire and glowed, then turned to black soot that stained and dirtied the snow underneath.

There was an unmistakable stench of burning flesh in the air, and I felt the cold stab into my body like a knife. I couldn't see – everything was blurry, but I could barely make out golden bodies charred and blackened, and powdered snow blowing nearly sideways in the wind.

Where on earth was I?

I staggered to my feet, feeling the blizzard hit my body in full force. My cold-addled brain was unable to provide me with any spells to keep myself warm, and when a lukewarm draft of air hit my side, I hurried over to the source of the heat. I didn't care that it smelled like burnt roast, or that I could make out blurred shapes that looked disturbingly like burning, charred hands under me. The warmth thawed my fingers, slowly invigorating my body until my shivering, though still strong, wasn't uncontrollable.

I needed warmth. The meager warmth that the log provided wasn't enough. I needed a bigger fire, or magic to make me warm, but any incantations I tried to remember died on my lips.

_Incendio_.

The incantation for the Fire-Making Spell flashed in my mind's eye, and I would have smacked myself in the forehead for forgetting it if doing so wouldn't have resulted in me losing even more body heat.

I readied the Elder Wand, and not feeling confident that I could enunciate clearly, silently cast the spell. I didn't put much care into controlling my magic– all I knew was that I needed to be warmer. _Right now_.

Fire roared out of the Wand, a veritable inferno blasting out of the focus. The flames lit everything in the vicinity alight, and the cold melted away as dried trees all around me caught fire. The entire area was now one huge bonfire.

I sighed in relief.

Now, if only I could remember how to conjure clothing.

I let the blaze counteract the blizzard's chill, sitting up against a log beside a burning corpse. My head sagged back, using a branch that jutted out of the log as an impromptu pillow. A few minutes passed, when I heard voices in the distance.

Despite the fire around me, the blizzard was powerful enough that I knew staying warm was a losing battle. I was warm for now – but fuel would eventually run out, and I lacked the strength to cast anything more than what I'd already done. I shivered, body still cold from the wind and snow, and I could slowly feel myself falling into unconsciousness.

It was another few minutes before those voices approached. I could hear the gruff shouts and alarmed cries of several men coming from before me, and I could see the vague outlines of tall, bulky-looking men dressed in what looked like blue tunics and medieval armor, crowding by the edge of my fire.

I opened a small gap in the flames with a weak flick of the Elder Wand, and blacked out just as one of them pointed at me, yelling something to his companions.

* * *

I dreamt of happier times, before the Second War, of a snowy Christmas morning in the Gryffindor Common Room with my friends.

"..._Thalmor…_"

A deep, gravelly voice was saying something to me, though I couldn't entirely make out the words. It didn't sound like English, of that much I was sure. Ron and Hermione beckoned me back to sit by the fire to open presents, when a heavy, meaty hand smacked me awake as it impacted against my cheek.

By now, I was getting rather tired of coming out of unconsciousness. I let Voldemort cast his Killing Curse at me in the Forbidden Forest, and woke up in the Hall. Then I went through what now felt like a delirious fever dream as I passed through whatever that void had been. Blacking out from the cold and then being smacked awake after all of that wasn't my idea of a good time.

Neither was being tied to a chair and having my hands restrained behind my back, for that matter. I couldn't move, and whatever that had been used to tie me up was secured so tightly that it dug painfully into my wrists.

I opened my eyes to see who my assailant was, squinting to try and get a clearer view.

He was a big, burly man, heavily muscled and tall of frame. He was dressed in armor that looked to be of steel and some sort of leather, spikes jutting out of his gauntlets and shin guards. He wore the skin of a bear, black-furred claws draped over his shoulder and across his chest, its head and jaws worn like a helmet or a hood. The man had a thick brow, with tense eyebrows, and judging from the bushy beard he'd tied off with a small band of twine or leather, had blond hair.

The man's gloved hands grabbed me by the collar – I'd been dressed in rags while I was out, it seemed – and shook me none too gently. He growled at me again, sayings words that I scarcely understood, though they sounded like an odd mix between Italian and one of the Scandinavian languages. He dropped me, chair and all, and waved his hands in front of my face. Apparently he was asking me something.

He repeated that word from before – _Thalmor_ – and glowered at me.

"I don't understand what you're saying." I growled. My cheek stung something awful, but I supposed I was glad that he'd smacked me open-handed with the palm of his hand. The sharp spikes on the back of his gauntlets looked absolutely vicious.

The bear-headed man turned to look at something behind him. I was already narrowing my eyes considerably, and couldn't focus my sight any further. I could see the vaguest outlines of another man, standing on a pedestal or elevated surface of some sort, and it seemed as though there were horns growing from his head at jagged, irregular angles.

"_Galmar…_" The man said a few words, though he repeated that one a few times. I could tell he was ranked higher than Bear Head from his gestures, and the way that the armored hulk responded to him, though I still couldn't see any of his features. The light was angled into my face as well, before Bear Head loomed into view again and hunkered down on a stool that he'd brought. He said some more gibberish to me, evidently quite agitated.

"I told you, I don't understand what you're saying." Bear Head growled in frustration at my response. He didn't understand me either, apparently. He reached down to grab my collar again, when the horned man interjected.

"…_Galmar_…" The horned man said something to Bear Head, and I realized that the unfamiliar word was the name of the man who had hit me. Galmar sighed, and instead of grabbing me, he picked up the chair I was seated on, turned it to face the other way, me still on it. I heard a blade being drawn, and I flinched – but relaxed a moment later when I felt my bonds being cut.

Blood rushed back into my hands, and they tingled as sensation returned to my extremities. I ran a hand through my bangs, and traced my lightning bolt scar as I did. Despite what I now knew about its true nature, the familiar motions served to calm me.

"Thanks." I said, ignoring Galmar and looking pointedly in the horned man's direction as I did.

"I take it you're the ones who brought me here?" I asked, though I knew they wouldn't understand. I waved my hands around, and pointed downwards with my forefingers. The pair made confused noises. Apparently, I was a horrible mime.

"Never mind." I sighed, cheek still stinging.

Despite my rough treatment at their hands, they'd clothed me, and seemed more interested in learning about me than killing me. I had no idea where I was, or _when_ it was, if Galmar's attire was anything to go by, and any help I could get was welcome. The two moons that I saw earlier were also a bad sign.

It was then that I noticed, rather belatedly, that I didn't know where my wand was. For a moment, I almost panicked – I couldn't cast magic without a wand, after all – but as if reading my thoughts, I felt something that I could only describe as a mental nudge brush my mind, and had a brief impression that the Elder Wand was reassuring me of its presence.

I looked down, and I noticed that there was a sort of marking on the back of my right hand. I ran the fingers of my left hand over it, acutely aware of the scrutiny of the two men before me. The skin was raised, feeling like scarred tissue, and as I traced my forefinger over it, I realized what it was.

It was the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

I felt the same nudging at the back of my mind again, and the Elder Wand conveyed feelings of patience and assurance. There would be time later for experimentation, it seemed. It would come when called.

The horned man said something then, and moved towards me. Galmar moved protectively over him, but the horned man offered a few words, and the burly man stood down.

He stood in front of me, standing nearly a foot taller than me. It was easier to make out physical details when he was this close, and I noted that he had a large, prominent nose, strong brow, and a healthy amount of facial hair. Galmar reminded me of a bear simply because of his size and because he dressed as one. The horned man, on the other hand, seemed to project a predatory gleam from his eyes, and felt both physically and mentally strong enough to do so if he wished to hunt someone down. He wore a heavy fur cape, and intricately detailed, black armor.

He didn't have horns either, I could see now. It was a crown sitting atop his head, jagged and cruel in shape, and looked like it had been crafted from bones or teeth, held together by a band of hammered steel. The man stood authoritatively, and I surmised that he was in a position of authority. Galmar at the very least seemed to defer to him.

"_Ulfric_." He then pointed at me, an expectant expression on his face.

"Har-," I started, not sure if I wanted to give him my real name, before settling on a compromise, "My name is Harold."

"_Harald?" _Ulfric questioned, his eyes widening a small amount before accepting my answer and nodding. Galmar seemed to react to the name as well, so it must have been of some significance. Ulfric reached over to a table close by, and retrieved a roll of parchment. He unfurled it to reveal a map, and pointed to a city on the northeastern end of the borders.

"_Vindhelm._" He pointed to himself again, then at the floor, then back at the city on the map, before repeating himself. "_Vindhelm_."

His name was Ulfric. He was from _Vindhelm_, which was the city we were now in.

Was he asking where I was from?

I looked at the map, recognizing none of the features, nor able to read any of the names on it. At a loss, I pointed to the ceiling.

"I'm from the United Kingdom."

Ulfric, as though he had expected to not understand a word out of my mouth, nodded, and gestured at Galmar, who seemed to want to protest the matter, but sulkily stepped back.

"_Wuunferth_." Ulfric ordered, and Galmar stalked off, disappearing behind a corner.

What in the hell was a_ Wuunferth_?

* * *

As it turned out, _Wuunferth_ was an old man with an attitude problem.

Galmar had come jogging back several minutes after Ulfric had sent him away. He'd seemed annoyed and a little agitated, though not at Ulfric himself, who said something to Galmar that made him harrumph rather loudly and walk out of the room.

"_Harald. Vele._" Ulfric gestured for me to follow. I stored that bit of vocabulary away for later. He stalked out of the room through the stone archway that Galmar had taken. My feet wobbled a bit, but I managed to walk after him in fairly good time.

Ulfric led me out to a large hall, lit by torches placed at eye level evenly along walls made of heavy grey stone. There was a massive blue and gold flag hanging behind an impressive stone throne, emblazoned with an insignia of some sort of predatory animal baring its teeth. Standing beside it was Galmar, and behind him, a thin figure in black attire.

"_Harald, ost neth Wuunferth._" Ulfric waited for me to catch up, and waved Galmar and the other figure over. It was clear that he wanted to introduce us.

"_Wuunferth, ich Harald,_" Ulfric said to the figure, who stepped forward close enough for me to take in his features. I squinted, noting to myself that I _really_ needed to conjure myself a new set of glasses once I had some privacy. I didn't know if these were people stuck in the Dark Ages. For all I knew, witch hunts were still a thing here.

The Elder Wand nudged the back of my mind again, seemingly reassuring me that it would be more than able to assist. I got the impression that it wasn't in any hurry, and after giving a moment, found myself in agreement. I found it a little disconcerting that I didn't think much of having something other than my own mind poking around in my head considering the circumstances, but waved those thoughts away for later. There were more pressing concerns right now.

Wuunferth reminded me a bit of Dumbledore, if the professor was on a permanent bender and looked tired, cranky, and hung over. He dressed in hooded black robes with faded gold trim, and had bony, wrinkled hands that probably hadn't been washed for weeks. His skin was sallow, and marked with blemishes brought on by age and bad maintenance. Oddly enough though, he smelled rather pleasant – of herbs and chemicals, reminding me of the way the Hogwarts Potions Laboratory used to smell, sickly sweet and pungent.

That he perpetually kept his hood up didn't help improve my impressions of him any. The hood kept his eyes obscured, and it was hard to tell where the old man was looking at any given time. He also refused to look anywhere near my eyes whenever I tried to get a closer look at him, and I had a distinct feeling that this was because he didn't think I was worth his time.

He stood with good posture, his back straight and stance alert, but his hands were held in front of him like claws. All in all, the man set me on edge, though he didn't seem overtly hostile or dangerous. He scowled at me, making it obvious that he was unhappy to be here.

"Erm, hello?" I offered, not quite sure what Ulfric wanted to achieve by having me meet with the man. Wuunferth glowered at me. It was then that I noticed that there were thin windows along one of the walls, and that it was pitch black outside.

Ah. His sleep had been interrupted, or something to that effect.

"_Wuunferth, val micht ifen._" Ulfric clapped a hand down on Wuunferth's frail-looking shoulder, momentarily setting him off balance. "_Galmar, velem necht._"

He walked over to the big throne, and sat down.

"_Wuunferth, Harald. Ehl goth._" Galmar grunted, and guided the two of us down another hall. He waved at what appeared to be a man dressed in servant's clothes, and they stood to attention and trailed behind us.

We walked down darkened hallways, and Galmar led the way with his torch. The air wasn't musty or stale, so I knew that this was a well-traveled corridor – they were probably trying to save on firewood by keeping the lights off.

Soon, we arrived at a closed door, and Galmar grunted at Wuunferth, who produced a key. It took him several moments to unlock the door, and pushed it open.

It was utterly dark inside, and the only source of light was Galmar's torch, which illuminated the outlines of strange objects with a flickering orange glow. Wuunferth muttered a word, and a ball of white light that seemed to diffract into the spectrum of the rainbow at its edges appeared, hovering gently overhead. He raised an eyebrow at Galmar, who harrumphed loudly and looked the other way. That wasn't important, however.

_Wuunferth just used magic._

That took me by surprise. I looked on in interest as Wuunferth went around the room, his ball of light bathing everything in a pale white light, and lit the torches and braziers lining the walls with waves of his hands. Soon, the entirety of the room was apparent, torches burning cheerily along the four walls.

I looked around the laboratory, curious. Though I couldn't recognize any of the equipment, everything somehow seemed familiar. Strange fauna and flora lined the shelves on one wall of the room, and a collection of heavy, leather-bound books another. The final wall had a large fireplace that housed a cooking spit and what appeared to be a rack for a cauldron or two, though it currently wasn't lit.

The things on the shelves were all alien to me, though I could hazard guesses to what they were. There were several bowls of different kinds of dusts of all colors, what had to be a jar filled with a large number of insect eyes, all manner of herbs both dried and fresh, and various other bits and pieces of creatures and plants. Potions ingredients and reagents, then.

Galmar stood at the doorway, the servant standing beside him in a subservient fashion. He nodded at Wuunferth, who extinguished his ball of light with a gesture, grumbled, and sat down at a table. He gestured for me to take a seat opposite him. Seeing no reason not to, I did as he asked, curious as to what he was going to do.

Unbidden, my stomach growled loudly, and I felt heat flush my cheeks.

"_Vreth han suuth._" Galmar said to the servant, who scurried off to do his bidding before I could get a proper look. The servant soon returned, with a basket of bread and a small pot of what appeared to be cold soup. He quickly set the basket down on our table, before bowing curtly and taking the pot over to the cooking spit. He set about trying to light a fire.

I frowned. Wuunferth apparently wasn't interested in helping the servant out at all, and neither was Galmar.

"_Harald… nas ich_?" Wuunferth seemed to ask, reaching for a piece of bread. It had long since gone cold, much like the contents of the pot, but looked absolutely delicious in my current state of hunger.

Wuunferth tore off a piece, offering me the larger chunk. I took it, hungry but cautious, watching him until he got the hint and popped his piece into his mouth. He chewed it thoughtfully.

The old man looked me over, scrutinizing my face.

"_Nas fost… Breton_?" He questioned, and I recognized the word, though his inflection seemed off. The servant flinched at the name, though neither Wuunferth nor Galmar seemed to notice. I decided to keep an eye on the servant, somewhat wary and feeling my ire rise at his mistreatment.

"Um, yeah. I'm from Britain. The UK." I answered, taking a bite out of my own piece of bread. It tasted a little like rye bread, though it smelled lightly of an herb I couldn't identify. I decided it was palatable, and took another bite. I chewed some more, feeling some strength return to my limbs.

"Hm." Wuunferth frowned, and I wondered if I'd answered wrongly when he produced a roll of parchment from within his robes. He unfurled it, revealing it to be a smaller, if more complete map than the one Ulfric had shown me earlier. It showed what appeared to be the entire continent, and I saw that the country Vindhelm was a part of only took up a modest section up north.

"_Das Vindhelm. Ich ost Skalriim._" Wuunferth pointed at Vindhelm again. Vindhelm was a part of Skalriim, apparently. I nodded to show that I understood, and Wuunferth pointed his finger towards me, then at a country on the western end of the landmass. "_Nas Hjaal Roc_?"

"No, that's not where I'm from." I shook my head, guessing at his questions. Wuunferth's frown deepened, and he pointed to another location on the map.

"_Nas Cyrodiil_?" I shook my head. Wuunferth began pointing at other countries on the map one by one. "_Morrovind? Hammefel? Elsveyr? Valtz Marsch? …Aldmeris?"_

"That's not it either. No, not there either. Or that," I sighed, unable to keep my frustration from my tone. There was no point to this. I pointed outside of the map, jabbing my finger down on the table. "Look, I don't recognize anything on this map."

"_Nas Akavir?_" Wuunferth instead questioned, apparently surprised. I shook my head again.

"No, not there either, wherever this _Akavir_ is. I told you," I pointed to the ceiling this time, not bothering to hide my irritation now, "I'm from the UK. The United Kingdom. The Wizarding World, in fact."

Wuunferth shook his head and turned to look at Ulfric, shrugging his shoulders. Ulfric said nothing, staring down imperiously at the old man. Wuunferth sighed, and appeared to consider his options.

They were eager to find out more about me, that much was already obvious. They were unsure of how to go about it though, aside from treating me with some common courtesy. If their treatment of their servants was any indication however, it didn't bode well for me if I didn't provide them with what they wanted sooner rather than later. Considering that they'd found me in a blizzard with corpses burning beside me, sooner was probably better than later.

I needed some common ground, something that would establish that we had more in common than not. Otherwise, I might find myself back out in the cold.

The servant still hadn't been able to light the fireplace, fumbling about and dropping his flint and tinder again. I saw my opportunity. Wuunferth had gotten up and was about to say something to the servant – I assumed it would be something rather rude and unkind – when I put my hand in a calming gesture.

"Look, Wuunferth, right? Let me help." I said, as gently as I could manage in the circumstances. Apparently, he was either too surprised to too curious to refuse me outright, and sat down. I stood up, taking care to keep my movements slow and obvious.

Galmar slowly moved his hand towards a sword that hung at his waist – I paid him no mind, and thought about the Elder Wand. There was a brief flutter at the back of my mind, just like before, and I held my right hand out in front of me.

One moment, my hand was empty. The next, it held the Elder Wand.

Wuunferth and Galmar started, the latter nearly drawing his blade in surprise, but I stretched my left hand out in what I hoped was a pacifying gesture.

"It's all right. Let me help." I repeated myself, in the same, gentle tone as before. I stepped towards the servant, who was quite beside himself in fear.

I motioned for him to move aside, and he complied rather quickly.

Despite my delirium during my stint out in the snow, my memory of it was clear. I remembered what had happened to my Fire-Starting Spell when I had cast it in desperation. The Elder Wand had fueled it, magnifying my intent, and caused an inferno to burn nearly everything in the vicinity.

I couldn't afford to do that here, especially in such a small space. I took a moment to concentrate, and whispered the incantation.

"_Incendio_." A small jet of flame shot out of the Elder Wand with much more force than I'd intended it to – but it was manageable, and I quickly got it under control. Soon, there was a fire burning cheerily in the fireplace, and I turned to Wuunferth and Galmar with a smile on my face.

Galmar harrumphed, sniffing in my direction. Wuunferth on the other hand, positively _beamed_.

He _really_ needed to brush his teeth.

* * *

It appeared that wizards were barmy in any setting, at least when it came to magic. Wuunferth was giddy like a child in the moments following my lighting of that fireplace in what I later learned was his official laboratory. He had a stupid-looking grin on his face that wasn't the least bit pleasant to look at, given the state of his teeth, but the look of intense interest in his eyes was too much like Hermione's when she found something that intrigued her in some esoteric book or another.

The old wizard's enthusiasm meant that I didn't even get to taste my soup before I was set upon by a tidal wave of questions and exaggerated gestures, much to my chagrin.

A couple of ticks up the intensity scale, if there were such a thing, would have put Wuunferth squarely at Dobby's level when he was freed from the Malfoys. In retrospect, I was fortunate that Wuunferth was more interested in what I could do than how I was able to do those things.

It had taken Wuunferth several minutes to remember that no, I couldn't speak his language or even read it, and that nothing he said was getting through to me. Added to the fact that I was exhausted – it was the middle of the night and I was still recuperating from the blizzard after all – I was just about ready to keel over.

My cheek throbbed. So did my head. I had no interest in casting any more spells. The effort it had taken for me to cast and control a single Fire-Starting Spell was much greater than I'd anticipated. I felt the Elder Wand acquiesce, as if sensing my intentions, and there was an itching sensation on the back of my right hand as it disappeared soundlessly.

A gruff word from Galmar was enough to remind Wuunferth of my condition, and embarrassment was plainly visible in his eyes as he breathed deeply to calm himself. He was noticeably calmer in a few moments, though a nearly predatory gleam of academic interest remained in his gaze.

That was last night, before I'd had a good night's sleep in what I surmised to be one of the guest rooms here. After calming down, Wuunferth had passionately argued his case to Galmar, then Ulfric. His case was apparently to set me up in a modestly sized room with an extremely comfortable bed.

I'd needed some help getting up three flights of stairs. My interrogation by Galmar and Ulfric, followed by Wuunferth's questions, had tired me out despite their brevity. I vaguely recalled Wuunferth tucking me into bed before falling into the deepest sleep I'd had in recent memory, and I'd woken up as daylight began to stream in through the windows. The blizzard, it seemed, had ended.

I felt good, though the clothes I was wearing at present were course and chafed my skin. The slight discomfort was negligible in face of how energized I felt. It seemed that one night of rest and a single piece of bread were enough for me to get my strength back. The Elder Wand nudged my mind at that thought. Apparently, it wanted to be let out.

I was just about to summon the Hallow, when there was a knock at my door.

"Um, just a moment!" I called out, before remembering that whoever was knocking wouldn't understand me. It was just as likely for them to assume that I'd allowed them in, rather than the opposite.

My suspicions were confirmed when a maid came in carrying a stack of clothes, dressed in the same attire I'd seen on the other servant from last night, though cut into a blouse and skirt rather than a shirt and trousers. She had her hair concealed under a medieval-looking cap, though I could tell that she was a blonde. She was tall, I noticed - certainly taller than me, at the very least - and was hardily built.

She curtsied briefly, her expression unreadable, and walked over to the bed. She set the clothes she was carrying down on a table by the bed, before unfolding each of them and placing them at the foot of my bed. She was offering me a choice between them. It was then that I realized that the clothes were intended for _me_ to wear, and I felt like an idiot for not noticing.

Apparently, Wuunferth had negotiated for more than a room for me to stay in.

The maid kept glancing up at me while she worked though, and was oddly avoiding looking at my face. In fact, it seemed that she was looking squarely at the covers where my-

_Oh._

She smiled coyly, and kept working. Apparently, the sheets weren't as thick as I thought they were. I could feel my cheeks reddening, but it was a matter of pride now. I made no motion to conceal myself despite the mortification I felt, and instead looked at the clothes the servant girl had brought up.

There were several modes of fashion here, apparently, though they all seemed incredibly gaudy and luxurious. Silks and cottons were prevalent, often accompanied by expensive-looking furs and flashy jewels sewn into the fabric.

Everything there looked very warm and comfortable, despite its gauche nature. I supposed that made sense. There was a blizzard the previous night, after all, and from what I remembered of the maps Ulfric and Wuunferth showed me, Vindhelm was located at the northern end of the northernmost region of the landmass.

The servant girl looked at me expectantly. I was expected to choose out of the selection she'd brought up, it seemed, but everything here was much too flashy for my tastes, not to mention that I didn't feel comfortable taking what had to be very expensive clothes from Ulfric.

"I'd rather not have any of those if it's all the same to you, Miss." I shook my head at the girl, who seemed confused.

"I don't suppose you have anything simpler?" I frowned, despite knowing that she wouldn't understand. She didn't, from what I saw, and began gathering the clothes up in a hurry. It seemed that she was a bit scared, and I wasn't sure of what she possibly had to be scared of, until I remembered that to her, I was what amounted to a foreign guest of Ulfric's. She was worried about offending me.

I was dimly aware of the notion that if I refused the clothes, I might commit an awful social faux pas – but decided that since I wasn't going to be comfortable wearing anything that seemed overly pricy to begin with, I might as well arrange for my own clothes myself.

"It's all right, then. I'll take care of it." I said, offering a placating hand.

I called the Elder Wand. _Finally,_ it seemed to convey, and materialized in my hand. I felt the symbol of the Hallows on the back of my hand itch terribly. When I looked, the symbol was missing something – the line down the center of it. That line represented the Wand, from what Xenophilius Lovegood had told us earlier in the year.

_Well, that's interesting, _I noted to myself, and pointed it at the clothes I was currently dressed in.

I was still wearing the same rags as last night. Course, yellowing threads of linen scratched my chest, and I focused on that sensation as I imagined the clothes transforming into something I was both more familiar and more comfortable with.

Transfiguration of articles of clothing into other articles of clothing was a practice that was frowned upon, back home. For one, an incomplete visualization of the end result would often result in the original piece of clothing being permanently damaged or at least very difficult to repair with magic. Then, there were other business-related reasons mandated by the Ministry. I imagined it was something comparable to how the manufacture of gold coins was prohibited for anybody not working for Gringott's, though Hermione had chastised me for making a factually incorrect simplification when I voiced my thoughts to her. The point was, a large proportion of wizards tended to prefer having the real thing over a conjured or transfigured piece of clothing.

I had the Elder Wand, however – and I knew the transfiguration would end up perfect. The Wand seemed to assure me of the notion as I thought it, and I concentrated. I didn't really remember anything but the most basic incantation. If I was back home, I would ask nearly anybody for a more specific spell, but I wasn't. Still, I was well rested and calm. I could do this.

Besides, being the owner of the Elder Wand was just blatantly cheating.

"_Texofors_."

I felt a stream of magic wash out from the Wand, enveloping my rags in a thin layer of energy. Within moments, the linen began to stretch and contort, changing in color to become white, and buttons popped into existence where there were none before. Soon, the raggedy tunic I was wearing had become a freshly cleaned button-up shirt of the kind I used to wear under my robes at Hogwarts. I was a far way away from home, and a little nostalgia never hurt anybody. I got up from the bed, and repeated the process with the linen trousers, which became a comfortable pair of jeans. I added thick, insulated socks, and a pair of browned leather boots suited for both running and walking. I tapped my toes against the cold floor to improve the fit, a smile finding its way to my face.

I was no slouch at Transfiguration, but it never came easily to me. With the Elder Wand however, I could scarcely believe the ease with which I could use magic.

I looked up, meeting the servant's eyes as she frowned. She looked quite offended, and hurriedly gathered up the clothes she had brought. A haughty sniff and the most impolite curtsy that I had ever seen later, she stalked off.

Well, that went well. I'd gone and annoyed someone I was likely going to have to rely on in the future. I was right about the social faux pas thing, at least.

This language barrier thing was going to cause me even more trouble soon. I just knew it. The Elder Wand soundlessly tittered its amusement.

"Shut up, you." I muttered, pointing the damn thing at a small piece of metal on the bedside table – it looked like a knife, though it was too blurry to really tell. Feeling more confident in my skills, especially with the Elder Wand handily at my disposal, I decided to wing the spell.

"_Fors_." I incanted, and smiled in satisfaction as the knife appeared to warp in shape, molding itself into a pair of glasses – complete with glass lenses. I walked out of my room, casting a silent Summoning Charm as I did. This particular spell, I was more than confident in.

The glasses landed lightly into my open hand, the Wand guiding them with a gentle grace that I could have never managed. I was always more of a point-and-shoot type of wizard than anything. I slipped the frames over my ears, and opened my eyes to confirm that the corrective lenses that I'd transfigured were a perfect fit for my vision. I headed out of the room, a quick flick of the Wand closing the heavy, wooden door with nary a sound.

The servant girl was waiting for me, still frowning – she'd passed the clothes I'd refused along to someone else apparently, and stood a few steps off from the doorway. I considered her for a moment.

"You were assigned to me, weren't you?" I queried, the words coming out of my mouth as a sigh. As much as I appreciated any servant's efforts, I didn't really like the idea of standing over other men and women like I was better than them. I guess a childhood spent under a staircase and doing the bulk of the housework without pay or three meals a day would do that to a person, but it wouldn't do to dwell on the past. The girl blinked, her expression puzzled, before she returned to her scowling.

She said something, and started walking away. From the way she stopped after a few steps to see if I was following made her intentions obvious, and I hastened to follow. She was taller than me, and she had a brisk pace – I had trouble keeping up.

The servant girl led me down a couple flights of stairs that opened up into the hall that Ulfric had introduced me to Wuunferth in the previous evening – if I'd only slept one night, that is.

Wuunferth was there to greet me, and the girl curtsied – this time a lot less forcefully than when she had left my room – before falling back a step or two behind me. Apparently she took her job seriously.

"_Harald, yacht tam_." Wuunferth said, and I smiled politely in return, managing to hide a grimace at the state of his teeth. He looked me over, taking in my state of dress and my glasses. His surprise was visible in the way his eyebrows rose comically.

Wuunferth's eyes lit up like early Christmas though, and he immediately set about poking and prodding at the fabric of my shirt, and I noted, carefully avoided touching the Elder Wand still clutched in my hand. There appeared to be a thousand questions racing about in his head, and his enthusiasm was quickly followed by keen disappointment, most likely due to not being able to ask me directly.

"Hrm." Wuunferth cleared his throat, appearing to calm himself down. He still looked as if he couldn't bear not being able to communicate his curiosity to me, but managed anyway. He put a wrinkly hand on my shoulder, and pointed with the other at the dining table in the middle of the hall. "_Harald, vreth?_"

"Sure." I nodded, and willed the Elder Wand away. The back of my hand itched again, and I knew without looking that the Wand had returned to its position at the center of the Deathly Hallows symbol.

* * *

It turned out that my earlier assessments of Wuunferth were entirely correct. He was of a transparent disposition who wore his emotions on his sleeve, and to the misfortune of his acquaintances, that meant that he was moody, cranky, and downright unpleasant most of the time. The only times he _wasn't_ grumbling about something or other, or seemed outraged at something were when he was working in his laboratory, or doing something important for Ulfric. Even then, he often muttered under his breath, though it was hard to tell if he was complaining or simply thinking aloud.

I supposed I was lucky that his taking me on a tour of Vindhelm fit both of those criteria.

The decision for him to do so was reached over breakfast as I'd looked on in ignorant interest. Ulfric, Galmar, Wuunferth, and what I assumed to be another of Ulfric's advisors were conversing amongst themselves while I chewed on a sandwich I'd made out of slices of cold roast wedged in a piece of that rye-herb bread, the same stuff as from the night before. Wuunferth and Galmar were particularly vocal, each trying to out-talk the other. Ulfric himself only nodded and offered a few words, appearing to try to hear both of them out equally.

The two just seemed to rub each other the wrong way, I noted.

Ulfric had put his foot down after a few minutes of squabbling, apparently deciding on something, and that had been the end of it. I'd caught a few words I'd recognized – there were two that they'd repeated the most. The first was their name for me: Harald.

The other was _Thalmor_.

It sounded like a name, though it didn't take a genius to figure out that they thought I had something to do with whatever this _Thalmor_ thing was. I needed to find out more about it, I decided. I went back to savoring my sandwich as Ulfric began directing his subordinates.

That had been two hours ago. Now, I walked the streets of Vindhelm with Wuunferth as my guide, and a veritable platoon of guards wearing blue cloak over their armor, and helmets that tapered to a point at the top following our every move. We drew the eyes of the citizenry as well, and people stopped and stared as Wuunferth and I as he pointed out one feature of the city or another to me. He was a famous figure here, it seemed, and it wasn't every day that he walked the streets – with a guest, no less.

Vindhelm wasn't a large city by my modern standards, but from the boastful tone in Wuunferth's voice, it must have been a rather large settlement by Skahlriim's standards. It was a major seat of power, from what I could tell from Wuunferth's gestures, and he didn't bother hiding his pride. He was surprisingly easy to understand even though there was a large language barrier between us, and he'd used his small, rolled up map of the continent – Tamriel, I now knew – and a series of creative motions with his hands to get his points across. Vindhelm was the capital of Skahlriim, from the looks of it, nestled into a mountain range near the northern edge of the region of Yestmark.

The instant I stepped outside, I felt the cold air sap heat away from my body, despite the heavy furs that Wuunferth had had brought up after we'd eaten. A quick charm had fixed that, eliciting a curious glance from the old wizard, and despite the apprehension of our guards, I'd cast the same Warming Charm on him when he eagerly volunteered himself to be subject to my magic. He chuckled when the charm hit him, happily proclaiming something.

The man was enthusiastic about magic, to say the least. I had to give him that much.

We'd walked around an affluent district to the west – a look at the building I'd been a guest of until then had revealed it to be a large fortress with high walls and tall doors, built of menacing black stones. Since it was the home of Ulfric, who I'd learned was ruler of Vindhelm and king of Skahlriim, I'd elected to call it the Palace. There were braziers all along the square, blocky walls, though they were unlit given the amount of daylight. Guards patrolled along the walls and towers of the fortress, and with my glasses now on, I could see that they each were armed with a sword at the hip, and shouldered a bow and a quiver of arrows. The guards following Wuunferth and I were less heavily armed. Some of them had swords strapped to their belts and shields on their arms, while others had the same bows and arrows as their counterparts patrolling the wall tops.

The district we were walking in now was called Valunstrad, and appeared to be a high-class neighborhood. Houses that would have been best described as manors lined both sides of a well-kept cobblestone path, and a hum of energy filled the air.

Fresh flowers bloomed as if it was spring in several of the houses' lawns, and the energy seemed to come from them. I turned to ask Wuunferth, when he pointed at the Elder Wand, having anticipated my question.

Magic kept the flowers alive, even throughout blizzards and cold weather.

The people of Vindhelm openly used magic to tend to flowers, and wizards like Wuunferth casually made use of it to provide light and heat for themselves. Despite this, they still used servants who couldn't cast any magic – the servant from Wuunferth's lab, for instance – and took their orders from a man who didn't appear to be able to use magic at all. The more I learned, the more questions rose in my mind.

The Elder Wand stayed silent all throughout my musing, offering no insights. As far as I knew, there weren't any magical means to learn a language – sure, there were ways to accelerate learning and improve retention, but those all involved potions made with ingredients I didn't think I'd find around here even if I knew how to brew them. There probably was a way to implant knowledge that involved Legilimency as well, but all that was meaningless unless I had somebody to teach me. I wasn't about to go about plucking the knowledge about a person's head, after all, though that assumed that I would be able to in the first place. I wasn't even sure if the Wand would be of any help to me if I was to try anyway, and the Mind Arts weren't a strong suit of mine to begin with.

For the moment then, I had to stick to the old fashioned way, and that was to learn the local language by myself.

Wuunferth tapped me on the shoulder, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"_Nas ich Valunstrad. Ost ich Ghel Od._" He said, gesturing first to a wide town square, where there was a stone building with a heavy, triangular roof with a cheery bonfire burning in a gathering area in the front. He then pointed to his map, letting me know that we were in the middle of town, directly south of the Palace. Sure enough, I could see the fortress a small ways off in the distance, looming over the city.

Wuunferth launched into a wordy explanation about the _Ghel Od_, and I nodded along for his benefit. He knew I didn't understand, of course – but he seemed to enjoy it, and it was interesting for me to try and guess at what he was trying to convey. The finer points were most definitely lost in translation, but I had enough presence of mind to be able to piece the contextual clues his gestures provided me and the things I saw in the city together to paint a mental picture of Vindhelm.

The city wasn't large, from my point of view at least, but from the scale of Wuunferth's maps compared to the actual city around me, it was home to several thousand people. Seven or eight thousand people lived here, give or take. There were probably ten thousand at the most, though I had little expertise in the matter. The population I'd estimated felt right, even though it was purely speculation based on my gut feeling.

There were a few people who stopped and stared as we passed. Wuunferth paid them no mind, and the guards kept them from getting too close – though whether that was for my benefit or theirs, I couldn't tell. Some men and women looked at Wuunferth with vaguely distrustful looks, but others didn't seem to have the same attitudes towards him. Some others looked at me, making rings over their eyes with their fingers. They were mimicking my glasses, I realized, the notion that this was a society that didn't have corrective lenses still new to me.

"_Harald, ich Lhegas ost Vindhelm!_" Wuunferth suddenly exclaimed. He pointed to a gigantic set of rust-colored steel doors set into the outer walls of the city. He showed me his map, indicating that these were the main gates to the city. They were heavy-looking, imposing things, glistening in the menacingly in the sunlight. The gates were open right now, and a number of guards were standing around it with spears at the ready.

The gates were beautiful, in their simple, brutal design. They opened up into the town square, which was a wide, curving area with low steps creating elevation, like a low hill with thin slices of it cut out to make stairs. Lit bonfires peppered the square, melting some of the snow that layered the ground around them. For the most part however, most of the square was covered in snow, though it appeared to have been shoveled away, or in some patches, melted away, most likely with magic.

Tall blond folk made up most of the people walking about the square, generally going about their morning routines. Some stopped to look at Wuunferth and I, curious, disdainful, or a combination of both, while most simply ignored us in favor of their own business. Amongst the crowd however, I could make out some individuals with black hair and dark skin, or some with golden skin and even brighter hair. They were all thin and willowy, though the dark-skinned people were short, some even shorter than I was, while the gold-skinned ones were by contrast extremely tall.

"Wuunferth, who are they?" I asked, pointing at several of them in quick succession, well aware of how rude it would have been back in Britain. It took him a while to understand what I was asking, but it was readily clear when he did. His giddy grin shifted into a frown within moments, and he put on a distasteful face.

"_Harald, ich Dunmer och Altmer._" Wuunferth began, his voice lowering into a mutter.

"They're what, exactly?" I asked again.

"_Harald, ost Mer. Mer, Harald. Mer._" He kept emphasizing that one word, like it was a curse. They looked normal enough, though a cursory glance at an ash-skinned _Dunmer_ who'd come close revealed him to have sharp, angular features, with slanted red eyes, as well as pointed ears. It was unusual, sure, but I'd seen stranger beings coexist in relative peace before.

I shrugged, ignoring Wuunferth's sour look. I didn't see why he was so worked up about it.

I would have asked, if the low, booming sound of a horn hadn't caused Wuunferth and the guards to freeze, and the townspeople to begin panicking en masse.

It was an alarm.

People ran into the nearest buildings they could find, and guards began streaming into the town square, assembling by the gates. Wuunferth grabbed me by the shoulder in a swift, jarring movement, yelled something into my face, and tried to drag me off, presumably to safety. I didn't let him.

A compulsion to stay rooted me to the ground. My body refused to move an inch, to consider retreat. Wuunferth could try all he wanted; I had to be here. I had to witness something. It was a baseless, irrational feeling. It might as well have been instinct.

I felt a presence approach. There was no other way to describe it – I just knew that something big, timeless, and powerful was about to make itself known. I didn't know what I sensed, how I knew, or why – not that I cared. The Elder Wand crooned in my mind, and I let it materialize in my hand.

The horn rang out again, a deep, menacing note that seemed to vibrate in my bones.

A beast roared in return, its cry thundering over the city.

"_Dovah._" Wuunferth whispered, fear written into every syllable, his voice wavering.

A shadow passed overhead, winged, and reptilian. I knew what it was. I'd seen that silhouette enough times for it to be etched into my memory for good. Guards all along the walls began notching arrows to their bows, waiting for the order to shoot –

"_YOL TOOR SHUL__!_"

A dragon hovered in front of the city gates, and belched a river of white-hot flame onto Vindhelm's defenders. Fire rained down on the hapless city guard, melting flesh and stone alike as the dragon unleashed its attack. Molten rock trickled down from the high walls of the city, cooling rapidly in the frigid northern air – it coagulated in big, goopy droplets within seconds, giving the impression that the stone walls of the city were made of black wax.

The dragon roared, ending its fires, and flew upwards. It soared around the city, circling around the town square like an overgrown hawk – before it spoke again. Its voice was a whisper and a shout all at once, seemingly reverberating in my skull.

"_YOL TOOR SHUL!_" It voiced again, and its inferno rained down on the city again. Dozens of yards of a city block somewhere east of me went up in flames.

The dragons I knew from the Wizarding World were mindless beasts. They were large, ferocious, and deadly, but they were simple animals in the end. Magical though they might have been, they lacked intellect, and they thus lacked speech.

This dragon _Shouted_ into my mind, its voice forcibly affecting the world around it to suit its whims. I could feel it rattling the inside of my head, and could faintly sense its hungry, voracious intellect lurking in the deep. It was timeless, a creature used to absolute dominance, that did not need to fear death, for it had no equals aside from its own kin.

The sigil on the back of my hand _burned_. The dragon had turned the eastern block of Vindhelm into an inferno. It had _murdered_ dozens of soldiers, and many more townsfolk besides. It wasn't a simple beast – it wasn't doing this out of hunger.

No, this was something else.

"_YOL TOOR SHUL__!_" The dragon Shouted a third time, heading directly for the town square. I was ready for it.

A normal Shield Charm wouldn't cut it. I didn't know any spells powerful enough to deflect dragonfire. I had to improvise, and the thought filled me with trepidation – but the Elder Wand was a comforting presence at the back of my mind. I could do this, and I _would_ do this. The Wand was mine, and it would _make_ this work. _I_ would make this work.

_I am the Master of Death_.

Wuunferth cowered behind me, unable to get me to move, unable to escape, though whether it was due to fear, duty, or loyalty, I couldn't tell. White fire burned through soldiers and panicking citizens alike as the dragon homed in on me, and I threw everything I had into the Elder Wand.

"_PROTEGO DRACONIS!_" I nearly screamed, my will flooding the Elder Wand with power. A brilliant shield of blazing white magic radiated from it, brighter than starlight. Heat washed over me, unbearably hot, and flash-boiling the snow beneath my boots. The lenses of my glasses seemed to distort and melt as dragonfire washed over my shield, but I persisted.

"_PROTEGO DRACONIS!_" I repeated, throwing more of my magic into the improvised Shield. My arms felt ready to fall off from the strain of the magic I was forcing through them, and my knuckles ached from clutching my Wand too tightly. I thought I would liquefy in the heat, even though the Shield reflected most of it – and abruptly, the dragon screamed in agony.

An arrow the size of a small car was embedded deep in the dragon's gut, and blood – red blood – bubbled out of the wound, hissing and boiling. A siege weapon I couldn't recall the name of was mounted on a tower along Vindhelm's outer wall, blue-uniformed soldiers already working to reload.

The dragon fire halted, and I let my Shield drop. Anger took ahold of me. People had died meaningless deaths, not for ideology, not for a better future, nor for any other reason than the dragon's will to dominate and destroy. My heart pumped liquid fury through my veins, and I knew that something had to be done – and that I was the one to do it.

"_SECTUMSEMPRA!"_ Professor Snape's signature spell immediately came to mind, and I roared the incantation. The Elder Wand eagerly complied, and a wave of pure, invisible magic visible only as a distortion in the air rippled from its tip.

Moments later, one of the dragon's wings was sliced clean off at the joint, and it screamed again, this time a horrible, terrified sound. Its magic failed without a wing to keep it aloft, and the dragon plummeted to the ground.

I wasn't done with it yet.

"_Accio_." I forced magic through the Wand, and yanked the falling dragon it from its trajectory. It yelped, and crashed into the town square in a heap of scaly skin and bones. Blood dribbled from its wounds, boiling and bubbling as it pooled on cobblestone, but I couldn't bring myself to feel mercy for this creature. I felt pity for it, certainly – but I couldn't afford to let that affect me.

Fighting the Horcrux taught me that.

The dragon opened its eyes – fearsome, slitted, and utterly alien to my own.

"_I am __**DWIIN'AHJOT**__. I would have words._" The dragon spoke – and I understood. Wuunferth seemed to understand as well, as shell-shocked as he looked. The dragon spoke directly into our minds, its mouth unmoving as it talked, and though it used strange vocabulary, I understood its speech as English.

"_You have bested me, wizard. MAHMUL is your strength; NOROK SULEYK name it." _Dwiinahjot weakly growled.

"_DOVZEYMAH! I will soon join you, my brothers!_" It gurgled blood, and then looked me straight in the eye. _"The DOVAH answer SOTQOSTRUN, JUL-yet-NI-JUL, JUN-yet-NI-JUN. Be you ALSAVIIK?"_

I didn't have an answer. A few moments later, Dwiin'ahjot fell silent.

I still didn't have an answer, minutes later, when life finally left the dragon's body and its corpse was consumed by flames that seemed to rise into the heavens.

* * *

_To be continued..._

* * *

_**Next Chapter...**_

_I sloshed about the streets of Vindhelm with heavy feet. Dwiin'ahjot's flames had thawed much of the snow in the town square, and the newly melted snow flowed along the streets like small rivers. There were bodies, and charred parts of bodies to be found all around the square, and it was all I could do not to feel sick at the carnage._

_Many Dunmer who had been slinking along in the background before the dragon attack were now rushing towards the eastern blocks of the city, where entire buildings were still on fire. Seeing their faces made me realize that I couldn't let myself rest yet._

_There was still work to be done._


End file.
